Unlucky Love in Modern Medicine
by wavemistress
Summary: BLU Team has a new medic and, as a result, BLU's head spy has some frustrating slip-ups and deaths that the medic, frankly doesn't find very entertaining.


Karla Herzog, age 31. Born in Stuttgart, Germany, and a gifted doctor, her medical license had been revoked three and a half years ago on the grounds that she had been trying unapproved medical experiments on her patients, only three of which had gotten worse as a result. Now, she was BLU's newest medic and was proving herself just as gifted there, at least so her training showed.

She was beautiful. Watching her during a break, Émile, BLU's top spy, had observed that Karla's dark hair was caught into a severe but efficient bun at the back of her head, but his imagination saw it hanging in long, beautiful, brown waves that framed her lovely face. He noted professionally that her large, brown eyes were augmented by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. However, he wondered idly just how much she needed those glasses. He could only guess how much more beautiful she would be without them. Her slender fingers carried the weapons of her new trade with an ease that spoke volumes about her skill with them. Émile wondered how they would look wrapped around the stem of a glass of wine. Finally, although she looked highly intimidating in her lab coat and blue gloves, Émile saw her clad in a floor-length red gown.

"Vy are you staring at me, Spy?" she asked. Her voice, even in suspicion, was the voice of an angel.

"I am assessing your strengths, of course," he replied easily.

"I am a medic," she replied, leveling a flat stare at him, "What needs to be assessed?"

"I assess everyone," he informed her, puffing idly on his cigarette as he pictured her seated at a small table outside a cafe in Paris... with him.. "You must keep to the back of the group. The other team are all ruffians and, since you are the medic, they will attempt to kill you first." She was such a beautiful creature. Perhaps she would enjoy eating a meal of...

"Nein!" she objected, furious. "I vas hired as a medic and a mercenary! I vill do my job and not hang back as a coward!"

Émile's bubble of fantasy dissolved with an almost audible POP. She _had_ been hired as a mercenary. As a medic, she would be required to be in the thick of battle, healing and übercharging the other team members, who could also be enemy spies in disguise. She was such a fragile flower. She must be protected at any cost!

At first, Émile settled for just watching Karla invisibly. This worked well for about half an hour, until the RED Pyro decided to do one of his patented helicopter burns, wherein he turned on his flamethrower and then simply spun around in a circle, leaving everything within range of the weapon in flames. In this case, one of those things happened to be himself. For some reason, his attention had wandered from protecting Karla, back to imagining her sharing baguettes with him... by the Seine... in July.

Later that morning, Émile had managed to hear RED Scout say he was going to "take out that pretty new Medic BLU's hired." His heart had leapt into his throat with this information and he'd gone to find her. Unfortunately, she wasn't where he thought she'd be and, while he was trying to locate her, he saw a single bullet leave his head as he heard RED Sniper's familiar Australian twang declare, "Thanks for standin' still, mate!"

Not long after that, he'd seen Karla attending to the wounds of Bobby Malone, BLU's Scout while RED's Demo-man, positioned above her and just out of her line of sight, had just placed a sticky bomb at his own feet. Knowing the crazy, black Irishman intended to launch himself into the air and shoot grenades at his beloved, Émile had carefully crept up on him. Perhaps too carefully. The sticky bomb went off just as Émile was pulling his arm back to stab the man.

Toward lunch time, they'd rushed RED's offensive line. To Émile's utter horror, RED's Heavy was right out in front and pointing his gun straight at Karla. At this point, he lost his cool exterior and rushed the gigantic Russian head-on. Something he would, ordinarily, have never done.

When he returned, he was pleased to see that Karla had claimed a Control Point, which meant, regrettably, she was required to stand in the open for a set amount of time while the capture was confirmed, and she was doing so, weapons in hand. He could already see the enemy Soldier, gearing to take the point back, had gathered a small squad of mercs and was giving them his usual pep talk, filled with the usual one-liners his ilk always seemed to use. Cautiously, he disguised himself as the RED Demo-man, who was currently indisposed behind a weapons shed, and joined the group. Émile managed to hear the whole of the Soldier's plan and was just congratulating himself when the Soldier declared, "Before we go out there, men, we should probably do a spy check!" Whipping out his shovel, the man promptly smacked Émile over the head with it. "I guess we found the spy," was the last thing Émile heard he drifted once more into blackness.

They broke for lunch and, afterward, Émile decided that his best bet was to sap the enemy sentries early on, to prevent them from hurting his beloved Karla. Activating his invisibility booster, he crept slowly to the place where the enemy Engineer had just finished setting up a single sentry, overlooking a place the BLU team would have to pass on their way to one of the Control Points. Karla would be in the group intent on passing this way. Quickly, while the Engineer had his back turned, Émile slapped his patented electro-sapping device on the machine, disabling it. Then he switched his invisibility booster on and turned just in time to see Karla go by, her lab coat flying behind her like a battle flag. A second later, he heard the Engineer cry, "Spy sappin' mah sentry!" followed by the distinct sound of a shotgun being cocked. Then, of course, the gun went off. Unfortunately, even though Émile was invisible, the Engineer's luck seemed to be at full strength because the shot hit Émile full in the back.

Shortly thereafter, Émile spotted Karla standing almost directly in the path of an oncoming enemy scout. Without stopping to think about it, he disguised himself as another enemy scout and took off after him. Apparently, however, Émile wasn't nearly as fast as a real scout. Rounding a corner, he found the enemy scout waiting for him. "Hey, heeeeyyy!" he laughed, swinging his baseball bat idly, "You shape shifted into a dead guy!" The next thing Émile saw was the logo imprinted into the side of the solid aluminum baseball bat.

Immediately after respawning, Émile rushed right back out, just in time to find Karla running past him as if her life depended on it, with the enemy Scout in hot pursuit. Laughing at how easy this was going to be, Émile stuck out his right foot. The Scout's left size ten hooked neatly into it and the Scout went flying into the dust. Émile was still laughing when six toxin-filled syringes lodged in his right side. "Anuhzah successful procedure!" an enemy medic crowed. Émile had forgotten to engage his invisibility booster.

Toward evening, just when BLU team was getting ready to quit for the day, Émile looked out and saw Karla standing in the middle of an open space, obviously looking for something. What was she doing standing in the open that way? The evening cease fire hadn't been blown, yet. Quickly, he ran outside, grabbing her by her slender wrist. "What are you doing out here, Karla!" he asked her, turning to tug her back to safety. "Come back to the bunker before you get killed!" She didn't move. He turned to tell her off and was surprised to see her grin evilly as her face changed from the lovely visage of Karla Herzog to that of the enemy Spy. "Well, this was a disappointment," the Spy declared and a sharp stab of pain told Émile that a knife had entered his heart.

Tiredly, Émile stumbled back into the bunker from the room the respawn generator sat. Karla was waiting for him. Smiling pleasantly, she approached him, placing her blue-gloved hands on his chest and looking up into his eyes.

"Émile," she said, her voice soft and imploring.

"Karla?" he responded, drawing her to him, unresisting.

"The respawn generator," she inquired in a gentle voice. "It vorks, ja?"

"Of course," he smiled, leaning in. After all his exertions for her, those cherry lips would taste so sweet.

"Then stop trying to protect me, dummkopf!" she barked, shoving him away so hard he stumbled over his own feet and fell on his back on the hard wooden floor. Turning on her heel, she stalked away muttering angrily in German.


End file.
